


Beauty

by songofthe52hertzwhale



Category: Dalton Academy Series
Genre: Eating Disorders, TW: Eating Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 04:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21238409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofthe52hertzwhale/pseuds/songofthe52hertzwhale
Summary: Like most things in his life, it starts with a movie.





	Beauty

**Author's Note:**

> For Hallie's birthday :)

Like most things in his life, it starts with a movie.

He isn’t the first to take on a role like this. He remembers an interview with Christian Bale, who’d dropped nearly seventy pounds for one movie, then gained a hundred back for the next. Hell, this isn’t even the first time  _ Julian’s _ put his body under stress -- his own father had encouraged the smoking habit for  _ Secondhand Lines _ , after the make-up artists couldn’t quite recreate the starving artist look the producers strove for. This role is nothing new.

It’s a period drama, something he hasn’t quite tackled yet. He’s to play the young lover of a powerful nobleman, who begins the film as a beautiful socialite and ends a disgraced prisoner. This will mark the first time he’s played a queer character on screen, and he’s desperate to do it right.

The first part is easy. The character is  _ fun _ , really -- playful and confident, a chronic flirt and brilliant in the art of seduction. He wears beautiful, albeit uncomfortable clothes. He dances. He kisses. He laughs.

There’s a reason they film his scenes in order. It’s not always the case, in Hollywood. Filming schedules are typically dictated by the availability of the actors, the necessity for certain weather and lighting conditions. But his character’s downfall comes with a significant physical transformation.

He’s arrested for treason. Thrown into prison. Made to survive on table scraps, as the noble who once doted on him turns against him. By the end of the movie, he’s starving. Emaciated, exhausted. One of his last scenes shows his clothes nearly falling off his body, the outline of every rib, the deep hollow below his eyes.

Critics marvel at Julian’s dedication to the role. His weight had dropped to under a hundred pounds, they say, and Julian had adopted a diet of black coffee and celery to make it happen.

Of course, his friends aren’t too happy when they see him.

He’d known the reaction wouldn’t be good. He’d tried to cover it up; when they greet him at the airport, he’s in an oversized hoodie and jeans, has sunglasses on to cover the dark circles beneath his eyes. But they see, still.

Derek looks horrified when Julian steps out into baggage claim. Logan’s lips press into a tight line, and he pulls the bag from Julian’s shoulder.

“Come on,” he says, “We’re getting you a burger.”

The thing is, Julian  _ tries _ to eat it. They don’t just get him a burger. They order a whole goddamn meal: cheeseburger, fries, milkshake. And Julian really, honestly tries.

He’s three bites into the burger when his stomach churns. He doesn’t even realize it’s coming, and Derek shouts as Julian throws up all over the back seat of his Lexus. 

It isn’t his fault. Even they realize it, once the shock has worn off. Julian hasn’t eaten anything this substantial in months, and a greasy burger was never going to be a good idea.

He feels like shit. Not just for getting sick -- though he swears he’ll pay for the cleaning -- but on the insides, too. The sight of the food makes him ill, and he can’t even imagine attempting the milkshake.

But his friends still look worried. He eats five fries. Slowly, deliberately. So they can see.

They taste like chalk in his mouth.

“I can’t anymore,” he says, after he’s choked down the fifth, “I feel awful. I can’t.”

Logan looks angry. Derek looks disappointed. 

“That’s okay,” Derek says, scooping up the rest of the food, “You should get some sleep. We’ll try something else tomorrow. Soup, maybe?”

That doesn’t sound all that appetizing either, but he nods anyway. It seems to satisfy them, and they let him crawl into bed. He’ll feel better in the morning. 

But when morning comes, he still feels like shit. It’s early still, earlier than anyone would expect him to wake up. He slips out of bed, pads into the bathroom and takes a deep breath before pulling off his shirt.

He hasn’t looked at himself in a while. Not really. He’d been worried that he’d look and think he needed to do more. That once again, he hasn’t managed  _ good enough _ . Instead, he stuck to the diet, hoped and prayed it was enough for the directors. It had been, thankfully.

It’s a little shocking to see. He’s never been as muscular as the others. But he’d been lean, athletic, with definition gained from years of stunt work. All that’s gone now.

He doesn’t quite hate it. It’s different, for sure. But it isn’t  _ bad _ . He kind of likes the way his ribs poke through his skin, the sharp jut of his hip bones. There’s a little divot where his collarbone end, and he presses his fingers against it. 

It’s beautiful, in a way.

There’s a sudden knock on his door, and Julian pulls his shirt back on. Logan’s waiting for him, a plate of eggs in hand. 

“I know you usually put cheese on them,” he says, pressing the food forward, and  _ god _ , Julian hates that smell, “But Derek thought that might be too much. They’re plain, mostly. A little bit of salt and pepper.”

“Thank you,” Julian says, taking the plate. Logan still has that concerned frown, so Julian scoops up a small forkful of egg, bites into it with a smile. It seems to be enough, for now, because Logan leaves him alone with the food.

Later, he looks pleased to find the plate scraped clean.

He doesn’t have to know the majority of it got flushed down the toilet.

It’s not that Julian’s trying to stick to the sub-hundred line. It’s just that so much food disgusts him, now. He can’t fathom the idea that he used to gorge himself on chocolate cakes and Chinese take-out, not when the smell of oil and sugar and grease makes his skin crawl. 

He eats enough to avoid the worried looks. It takes him a while to build up any sort of appetite again, but he manages. He sticks to salads and soups, nibbles on toast for breakfast and takes his coffee black.

“I figure it’s a good time to change my eating habits, y’know? While I’m still re-adjusting. I need to stay in good shape, after all. Who knows what my next role is gonna be.”

He isn’t sure the explanation sticks. He sees the look Logan and Derek share, the face they always make when they think he’s full of shit. But he’s careful. He’s eating enough during the day to keep them satisfied. It’s not the way he used to eat, but it’s not like  _ that _ was very good for him, either.

The weight comes back quicker than he thought. 

The hollow at his collarbones disappears after just a few weeks, and Julian frowns when he notices. He presses his fingers against the skin there, wonders how it vanished so quickly when he’s still carefully monitoring his calories.

He’s not trying to retain the emaciated look. He isn’t stupid. He’s seen other actors struggle with their weight, and he isn’t like that.

He isn’t like Patrick, who logs all his food in an app, obsessively counts his calories and macros and agonizes when a number slips higher than he’d like. He’s not like those models he does photoshoots with, who eschew solid foods entirely and sigh over bowls of mushroom broth. He’s different.

Julian Larson is stronger than all that.

He doesn’t have a problem. 

They post photos of him from set. Photos where he looks tired, haunted. They say it makes alluring, mysterious. That his cheekbones are more pronounced, that he’s  _ beautiful _ .

He wants to be beautiful.

That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? That’s what the whole industry, the whole  _ world _ is about. He has to be beautiful, always. And he  _ is _ .

Of course, it’s not just about looks. That would make him just like all the others, and he’s different.

He likes how he  _ feels _ . 

It’s strange, that the gnawing pain of hunger has grown into something he enjoys. But it’s something he can  _ control _ , something nobody can take away from him, something he gets to decide himself.

He isn’t sick.

His weight goes up. He couldn’t maintain the size he needed for the movie permanently, after all. So he gains some of it back. He eats a piece of toast with margarine for breakfast. A salad at lunch. He skips dinner most nights, unless Logan or Derek forces him out of his room. It’s mostly management sort of thing -- he has homework to do, scripts to memorize. Dinner would take up too much precious time.

They bring him in for photoshoots. The photographer marvels at his  _ new look _ , compares him to Timothée Chalamet, to an early Johnny Depp, to a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt. 

“It’s the new look, you know,” he says, between camera flashes, “Nobody wants buff anymore. They want this. They want  _ you _ .”

Julian feels a surge of pride. He arches his back the way the photographer wants, contorts his body until his stomach caves in and pouts so the hollows of his cheeks pop. 

They eat it up.

It’s just a good career move, really -- marking out the  _ type _ he’ll go for. He’s never had too much of a problem putting on muscle. But he knows he isn’t built the way Derek is, knows he’ll never be as big as Logan. He can’t be Chris Hemsworth or Chris Evans. But he can be River Phoenix. He can be Ansel Elgort.

He can be Julian fucking Larson.

He takes up running. The extra calorie burn means he can eat more when his friends worry, and he finds he likes the way he feels after. Like he’s accomplished something. His clothes start to feel loose again, and he finds that hollow in his collarbone once more.

“You need to eat,” Logan says, with barely-concealed anger, “Come on, Julian, you can’t have just a piece of toast for breakfast every morning.”

“Try some of this protein shake,” Derek offers, “It’s healthy, I promise.”

They don’t  _ get _ it. They’ve never been under a microscope the way Julian is, never had their bodies poked and prodded and frowned over, never had to sit totally still as makeup artists grumble about their features. They don’t have costumes to fit into, don’t have directors telling them how they’re meant to look.

This is just his job. His  _ life _ . 

Derek starts to join him on his runs. Not willingly, Julian knows -- Derek’s always worried about cardio, concerned that it might make him lose bulk, might ruin the muscle mass he’s gained from years of sports. Still, more often than not, Derek’s waiting when Julian steps out of his room, sneakers laced. They run in silence, every time, and Derek’s panting by the time they’re done.

Logan tries to feed him. He keeps buying Julian’s favorite treats from before, keeps stocking his room with cookies and chips and flavored sodas. The lollipops aren’t so bad, really; the calorie count is low, and they tend to suppress the hunger just a little longer. But the cookies and chips and drinks get thrown out, and Logan frowns when he finds the untouched Starbucks frap in Julian’s trash can.

“I thought you were prettier before,” he says quietly one day, and Julian shoves him from the room, refuses to speak to him for days.

This isn’t about them. This isn’t about  _ fucking _ Logan, or what anybody else thinks about him. This isn’t about the directors, or the photographers, or his parents.

This is about  _ him _ .

He hears them talking, when they think he isn’t listening. Hushed conversations behind closed doors.

_ “It’s getting worse, isn’t it? Have you tried talking to him? He cares what you think.” _

_ “I tried. It didn’t work.” _

_ “Do you think we could talk to one of the teachers?” _

_ “They’ll make him see the therapist. She isn’t great.” _

_ “Carmen, then? His parents?” _

_ “Yeah, maybe. I could try his mom…” _

Julian can’t help but snort at that. As if his mother hadn’t spent half her twenties with her fingers down her own throat. As if his father wouldn’t be proud of his dedication. 

It’s just a diet. He’s no different than any other Hollywood star. They all count calories. They all meet with trainers. It’s an industry of looks, after all.

Julian knows what he’s doing.

He stares in the mirror, presses his fingertips to the hollows of his cheeks and the space above his collarbones.

He is beautiful.


End file.
